JENNY LEE WOKE up one morning and realised that she felt nothing for the man lying beside her. The thirtysomething Korean businesswoman asked for a divorce before she was even out of bed, and her husband agreed. Their application was approved the next day.
Lee doesn't regret her spur-of-the-moment decision. 'It was just a case of realising the futility of it all,' she says. 'I was fed up with my husband's affairs with younger women. He wanted an obedient housewife and I wanted a husband who could grow with me as an individual.'
In South Korea, breaking up is easy to do. A divorce can be obtained as quickly as it takes to eat a bowl of spicy kimchi stew. The paperwork is relatively straight- forward, court clerks are on hand to help, and the fee is a mere US$10, which is often waived.
Available since 1979 under the Divorce Act, on-the-spot annulments used to be a convenience for men tiring of their wives. That changed during the past decade with the decline of the Confucian patriarchal system, women's rising expectations and relaxed social mores.
The quickie divorce became the easiest solution for women trapped in unhappy marriages. Divorces rose to 157,100 in 2003 from 68,300 in 1995. About 87 per cent were by mutual consent.
But during the past year, concerned judges and legislators have tried to rein in the rate by making couples observe a cooling-off period before signing the divorce papers.
